Nigerian e-health startup Remedial Health, which develops solutions to make Africa’s pharmaceutical value chain more efficient, has unveiled an updated version of its customer-facing app, designed to function as an operating system for neighbourhood pharmacies and Proprietary Patent Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) across the continent.
Launched in 2020 by Samuel Okwuada and Victor Benjamin, Remedial Health delivers a range of technology solutions that make it easier for healthcare providers to access affordable and genuine retail medicines, consumables and medical devices from manufacturers and distributors.
In 2022, it took part in the Y Combinator accelerator programme, and raised both pre-seed and seed rounds of funding, which it followed up with US$12 million in equity and debt funding last year.
The startup’s new app comes with a digital POS terminal to support payment collection, virtual business accounts to receive payments, an in-built barcode scanner feature for recording product sales and store-switch functionality to enable the seamless management of multiple stores, as well as inventory management solutions for restocking and easily identifying short-dated products.
The app also offers comprehensive financial reporting to manage profit and loss, and data analytics to inform decision making. It has been designed specifically for healthcare businesses in Africa, with tailored features that have been designed to support effective decision making to drive business growth and profitability.
“Neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs represent the frontline of healthcare delivery in Africa but they have historically been left to their own devices to figure out how to be efficient and profitable. Our mission is to empower these essential service providers with the tools they need to manage day-to-day operations and seamlessly run their practices effectively,” said Samuel Okwuada, CEO and co-founder of Remedial Health.
“We spent a lot of time interacting with our customers in the process of delivering this product and the feedback has been great. We are excited by the opportunity to get the app into the hands of pharmacies and PPMVs across the country to support their ongoing success, as well as the health and wellbeing of the nation.”
In 2023, Remedial Health sold more than 300 million individual packs of medicines to 7,500 hospitals, neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs across all 36 states of Nigeria. Its customers also improved their profits by 30 per cent on average, with access to more than 8,000 vetted products at the same, or better than, open-air medicine market prices.
